Top US Justice Department civil rights official resigns as Congress prepares probes

The top official in charge of the United States Justice Department's civil rights division has resigned as Democrats prepare a new round of congressional investigations. Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed on Thursday that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon had stepped down. The departure comes just days after Democrats won both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.

Blanche said in a social media post that he had accepted Dhillon's resignation. He described her as someone who had defended the civil liberties of Americans and enforced the law without fear or favor. Dhillon was confirmed to the post in April 2025 and had overseen a major overhaul of the civil rights division.

The division is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws and has long played a central role in federal civil rights enforcement. According to the supporting material, Dhillon's office had also been at the centre of internal and external criticism over its handling of politically sensitive cases. Hundreds of former Justice Department officials wrote last December to denounce what they called the destruction of the division under the Trump administration.

The resignation comes at a politically sensitive moment for the administration. Democratic congressman Robert Garcia, who is expected to become the next chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has pledged investigations into alleged abuses of power by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and into the Jeffrey Epstein files. The supporting material also says Dhillon's office had not planned to investigate the fatal shootings of two US citizens by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

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The change matters because the civil rights division has historically been one of the Justice Department's most visible enforcement arms. Its work can affect policing, discrimination complaints and federal oversight of civil rights violations. A leadership change at this level may shape how the department responds to scrutiny from a newly empowered Democratic Congress.

It is not clear from the available material who will replace Dhillon or whether her departure is directly linked to the coming investigations. What remains to be seen is how the Justice Department will handle the expected congressional inquiries and whether the civil rights division's approach will change under new leadership. The broader political impact will depend on how aggressively lawmakers pursue the ICE and Epstein-related probes in the weeks ahead.

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